This pixelated grayscale image was taken by the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico on April 2010. It shows an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier on direct interception course with Earth’s orbit.
Pretty damn close. In fact, The 400m wide asteroid called 2005 YU55 will get closer to our home planet than the Moon itself: 324,600km. That’s 0.85 the distance from our silver satellite. So no, it will not kill us. But it will get close enough to get uncomfortable.
According to NASA, the “trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood”, so there’s no dangers whatsoever. Its gravitational influence will not affect anything in our planet, so don’t expect volcanoes to go off, tectonic plates to sink into magma or tides getting New York under the Atlantic ocean. It will just pass by as scientist observe it using the Goldstone and Arecibo antennas, so expect some asteroid porn in the coming days.
It’s just a friendly, slowly spinning spherical asteroid darker than charcoal saying high… I WILL GET YOU THE NEXT TIME! (in 2028). [NASA]